Park gets miniature train back on track

By Mary Spicer

07/03/06 July 02, 2006 11:08 pm

— CONNEAUT LAKE — With a sign proudly proclaiming “Bessemer Railway System” in the background, a grand-opening ribbon waiting to be cut and a standing-room-only crowd hanging on his every word, George Deshner lost it.
“I get emotional,” the general manager of Conneaut Lake Park told his obviously understanding audience as he wiped away a tear or two and prepared to proceed with a ceremony he had been looking forward to for quite some time.
“Since September, when the board of trustees was dissolved and I was asked to stay on board as general manager, I knew that one of my goals was to get this train running,” he said Sunday afternoon just before the ribbon was cut.
It wasn’t easy. And it took the combined efforts of Conneaut Lake Institute Inc., Conneaut Lake Historical Society and countless individuals and companies to make it happen.
A miniature train ride has been part of the story of Conneaut Lake Park since 1904.
Since being moved to its current location the 1940s, the ride has seen train models come and go. However, by the time the end of the 2002 season rolled around, the Alan Hershell Iron Horse model installed during the 1960s was literally on its last wheels. And axles. And track.
As he reviewed the history of the project, Deshner called forward a group of people who put it, well, back on track, beginning with Conneaut Lake Historical Society President Jane Smith. A Meadville Tribune reporter by day, Smith had an idea she thought just might work to raise the money needed to get the train running once again. “She said the railroad industry was important to Crawford County — and she thought families would want to help,” Deshner recalled.
Once the Brick by Brick campaign got under way, however, word spread beyond the railroad community and others quickly joined in.
“I think it’s amazing how the people in the community have supported doing this,” Institute member Carol West said. “To raise over $32,000 — without any corporate sponsorship — is simply amazing.”
The $32,600 raised so far literally came in brick by brick, $100 at a time, Smith agreed. “It just shows the spirit of the community. We’ll have $36,500 (the total cost of putting the train back on its track) before we’re done.”
Time, however, is running out. Organizers have set a July 15 deadline for new brick orders and pledge payments to be postmarked.
The first run of the newly-restored Iron Horse was a ride down memory lane for Vicky Palmer, who rode the same train on the day 40-something years ago when it made its first-ever run. Probably 4 or 5 years old when she was captured on film by a photographer as she waited not-so-patiently in line for her ticket, “I remember the engineer coming into the cafeteria (where her mom worked at the time) and taking me down to ride it,” she recalled with a smile. Now a Greenville resident, Palmer works at Oakland Beach Golf Course.
Karl Brown and his grandson, Alex Fies, a first-grader at West End Elementary School, were also along for Sunday’s first ride. Owner of Tool City Welding of Meadville, Brown approached Deshner early-on in the project. He wanted to ride the train with his grandson, Brown told Deshner, and he was willing to do whatever it would take to make that happen. As a result, Tool City Welding repaired all the worn-out and damaged wheels, now running happily on new track laid on a bed of gravel donated by Conneaut Lake Sand and Gravel. It takes a community.
With the train back on the track, Meadville resident Bill Garts will be at the controls, guiding it through leisurely 7-minute journeys through the park. For now, he’s the only engineer, he said Sunday.
He was born for the job. From 1944 to 1964, Garts was a railroader “on the great Erie Railroad,” working in Youngstown, Ohio, on the clerical end of the business, he recalled Sunday afternoon. From about 1985 through 1990, he worked on the park’s paint crew. He retired in 1990 when the park closed down and came back for the first time this year.
As for what it takes to run the train, there are basically three levers — go, stop and reverse — and the bell and the whistle. The key, he said, is to keep it slow and steady.

Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com

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